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NCAA willing to study D-I tournement

01-15-2008, 05:43 AM

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- University of Georgia president Michael Adams presented his proposal for an eight-team playoff to the NCAA Division I board of directors Monday in Nashville and they decided to study the issue with others before making any moves.

James Barker, chairman of the board and the president of Clemson, called the talks candid and constructive. But he said the directors believe the discussion should include presidents at the conference level and the committee overseeing the Bowl Championship Series.

The board also wants a task force announced last month by NCAA President Myles Brand to study issues over the use of student likenesses' to expand its review and study commercialization as it relates to postseason football.

The task force hasn't been named, and there's no timeline for a report to the board.

Adams announced his proposal for an eight-team playoff for the Football Bowl Subdivision using the BCS games following years of opposition to a playoff. He unveiled his proposal on Jan. 8, hours after LSU won the BCS national championship game.

His playoff proposal used the Sugar, Orange, Rose and Fiesta bowls as the opening round, leading to semifinals and a championship game. Adams said he believes the study will result in additional tweaking to the BCS system.

Don't hold your breath thinking that a playoff is around the corner. Any 8 team format will have to include all Div 1 conference champions including conferences like the WAC or MAC etc. Anything less and the NCAA will collapse under the weight of lawsuits from the smaller less pretigous conferences. They are not going to just sit there and watch the major conferences destroy the Bowl system unless they get an equal share of the revenues generated by the playoffs. Anything less would see the smaller less prestiges conferences have to give up football altogether because the loss in revenues would make fielding a team almost impossible.
The proposal will get bogged down in discussions about how you satisfy the smaller Div1 conferences and still make it attractive to the more powerful conferences. It's all going to come down to revenue sharing and once it gets to that stage we'll see how committed colleges are once they realize that they will have to share the wealth or find themselves dragged through the courts to justify leaving the smaller conferences out in the cold.
It is certainly my experience like with Baseball, that revenue sharing can bring discussions to an end quickly. I reiterate that to call a team, a NCAA Div 1 champion, you are going to have to include every Div 1 conference champion in the playoff format.
Everybody here may jump for joy thinking about an eight team playoff but once they hear that only 1 team from their conference will be included and that inferior teams from the smaller Div 1 conferences will be in the playoffs over the 2nd place finishers from the bigger conferences, I have to wonder what the reaction will be???

And proud of it!!!

Comment

Don't hold your breath thinking that a playoff is around the corner. Any 8 team format will have to include all Div 1 conference champions including conferences like the WAC or MAC etc. Anything less and the NCAA will collapse under the weight of lawsuits from the smaller less pretigous conferences. They are not going to just sit there and watch the major conferences destroy the Bowl system unless they get an equal share of the revenues generated by the playoffs. Anything less would see the smaller less prestiges conferences have to give up football altogether because the loss in revenues would make fielding a team almost impossible.
The proposal will get bogged down in discussions about how you satisfy the smaller Div1 conferences and still make it attractive to the more powerful conferences. It's all going to come down to revenue sharing and once it gets to that stage we'll see how committed colleges are once they realize that they will have to share the wealth or find themselves dragged through the courts to justify leaving the smaller conferences out in the cold.
It is certainly my experience like with Baseball, that revenue sharing can bring discussions to an end quickly. I reiterate that to call a team, a NCAA Div 1 champion, you are going to have to include every Div 1 conference champion in the playoff format.
Everybody here may jump for joy thinking about an eight team playoff but once they hear that only 1 team from their conference will be included and that inferior teams from the smaller Div 1 conferences will be in the playoffs over the 2nd place finishers from the bigger conferences, I have to wonder what the reaction will be???

Well, that may sound like a well thought out argument but in reality it's incorrect. The WAC, MAC, etc aren't currently considered in the BCS anyway based on conference champions. They are only considered if they are ranked high enough to get the BCS exemption. There is really no basis for them to sue based on a) the current system doesn't have this provision anyway so it's not as if they are losing their representation and b) the playoff will most likely not include enough teams to even have this considered.

The WAC, MAC, etc weren't guaranteed representation in the NCAA men's basketball tournament prior to 1980 when only 48 teams were in the tournament. Currently there are only 6 BCS conferences so a very likely scenario is the 6 conference winners and 2 at large bids from either other conferences or from BCS conferences that have viable candidates.

Do not throw the 'lawsuit' argument around because it's completely invalid.

Designs by Thule

Originally posted by DMWSackMachine

I just wanna warn you guys not to take TNew41 too seriously. He's....let's just say, special. He's fairly harmless, though. He just needs several years of seasoning before he tries to make any more points, is all.

Comment

It's impractical, but I like a 14-team playoff. Each conference champion (including the ones from Conf. USA, the MAC, ect) would be represented, and there would be 6 at-large bids.

The #1 and #2 would get first-round byes.

So, you're saying that there are 6 at large bids. Which means that a team like Georgia, who finished #2 in the country at the end of the bowl season, but #3 in the conference (behind LSU and Tennessee) would most likely not get into this bowl scenario. However, Hawaii, which lost to UGA 41-10 would be in the 'playoffs'.

Do you see how ridiculous this amounts to? The bottom line is that no lower-tier conference champion should be admitted at the expense of a better team in the playoffs.

This works in basketball because they have 65 friggen' teams they let in, not 12.

In Baseball the CWS starts with 64 teams also at the regional level.

Bear in mind too that Div I-AA (or Div I-FCS if you want to use the proper name) plays 10 games in the regular season then the playoffs. Do that in Div I football and the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. Big schools won't schedule small schools as often. This means that the teams like Soutwest Middle Tennesse State, who rely on the annual drubbing by Tennessee to get half of the ticket revenue from 90k+ tickets (which usually equals about 75% of their annual revenue) get less and less of the 'pie' but big schools and conferences get more because now they get all the playoff money too.

Designs by Thule

Originally posted by DMWSackMachine

I just wanna warn you guys not to take TNew41 too seriously. He's....let's just say, special. He's fairly harmless, though. He just needs several years of seasoning before he tries to make any more points, is all.

Comment

So, you're saying that there are 6 at large bids. Which means that a team like Georgia, who finished #2 in the country at the end of the bowl season, but #3 in the conference (behind LSU and Tennessee) would most likely not get into this bowl scenario. However, Hawaii, which lost to UGA 41-10 would be in the 'playoffs'.

Do you see how ridiculous this amounts to? The bottom line is that no lower-tier conference champion should be admitted at the expense of a better team in the playoffs.

What? It's 6 at large bids. It would not change the way it is selected. Georgia would still get in.

Comment

Its not going to happen anytime soon...arent there still contracts set up with the orange bowl and fiesta bowl etc for a few more years?

and somehow it will still be a controversy, I can only imagine the first time a team goes 12-0 in the reg season, then somehow loses in the semi finals and dont even get a shot in the NC, they will be screaming from the mountain tops how stupid this was...Wont ever make everyone happy

Originally posted by Scott Wright

I guarantee that if someone picks Cam Newton in the Top 5 they will regret it.

Comment

What? It's 6 at large bids. It would not change the way it is selected. Georgia would still get in.

What I'm saying is that with 6 at large bids you'll have conferences like PAC-10, Big-10, Big-12, ACC and Big East all vying for spots. So that most likely a team that finished 3rd in a major conference would get left out (you're not going to get enough at large bids) but a team that wins the MAC gets in instead.

Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, ASU, Missouri, Kansas, Tennesse, Georgia, Florida---just this year alone, 3 of these teams (Among others not listed for the sake of discussion) get left of the list while Central Michigan gets in because it won the MAC. Don't you see how ridiculous that system is?

Designs by Thule

Originally posted by DMWSackMachine

I just wanna warn you guys not to take TNew41 too seriously. He's....let's just say, special. He's fairly harmless, though. He just needs several years of seasoning before he tries to make any more points, is all.

Comment

It's impractical, but I like a 14-team playoff. Each conference champion (including the ones from Conf. USA, the MAC, ect) would be represented, and there would be 6 at-large bids.

The #1 and #2 would get first-round byes.

There are 11 conferences (6 BCS Conferences, MAC, WAC, Mountain West, Conference USA, and Sun Belt), so to have a 14-team playoff, with all the conference champions, there could only be 3 at-large bids.